Eric flashed a pleased smile as he felt a fresh surge of spiritual heat blaze away at a particularly stubborn blockage until it finally burst, spending long moments visualizing those thick chunks of waste being immolated by white hot flame and breaking down to finer and finer particles, ugly knots of essence broken down at last into their spiritual components to be absorbed and recycled, the excess secreted as waste that made an intently studying Sam wrinkle his nose, even as Eric sensed the transformation.

“Fresh breakthrough?”

Eric smiled but didn’t bother replying, all his focus now on switching techniques to the gentle flow emphasized in the manual he had been studying with renewed interest whenever Sam was taking a break from his own intent struggle for a breakthrough. Of course, his young friend had been steadily growing in other ways that didn’t require any surges of illumination, just daily practice and dedication, both with saber and learning the bare basics of fighting with a spear.

He was also proving to be an adept hand with the crossbow Eric had seized from the would-be Goblin assassins, having counted his blessings when he noted the tri-shot capacity of the weapon, and that if the first shot fired from the top, thickest pair of limbs had actually struck Eric’s leg, it would have blown right through, shin guards notwithstanding. As it stood, the exotic components of the crossbow’s construction also allowed the highly compact bottom two pairs of recurved limbs to fire lighter, specialized quarrels with poison-filled cartridges with just as much speed and power as his old reverse draws.

Of course Eric had replaced the deadly quarrels with safer variants he made of bone and infused with the slightest dollop of the essence of Dominion, which proved to be no real strain on his cultivation at all, and he encouraged his young friend to master the kick of the bottom two slots before using the top limbs to shoot heavier tungsten-tipped quarrels with even more penetration power than a 1000 lb draw crossbow, so popular centuries ago. Yet in surprisingly short order, Samuel had mastered firing shots from all three sets of limbs, his bolts most often hitting their own essence-infused meat and bone targets in tight, accurate clusters.

Even if Sam did occasionally flashed Eric a sheepish smile, mostly whenever he needed replacement quarrels.

It was truly a deadly killing tool that his friend had taken to like a bee to honey, much to Eric’s encouragement, as it would allow him to quickly become a deadly addition to any fighting force without risking himself on the front line by Eric’s side.

“Alright then, I’ll work on dinner if you take a bath.”

Eric silently nodded, glad that his friend could sense when it was safe to distract him, and when it wasn’t, the pair having kept up their party link the entire time. And if his friend’s excited cursing the other day was any indication, it had actually done some good.

“Any fresh breakthroughs?” A refreshed and fully washed Eric asked a short time later. “Nice job on the ribs. How did you make this barbecue sauce? It’s not like we have that many ingredients.”

Sam grinned. “Actually, the spice jars you let me pilfer from your would-be killers clearly belonged to a connoisseur. But I’m glad you like the rub. How was your breakthrough?”

Eric grinned. “Hit Rank 3. Strength is now 56, Quickness 44, and Vitality is just about to hit the 40s, among other things.”

His friend whistled. “Sweet as anything! If you can get a fresh breakthrough every three or so days, jeez, you’ll be shooting up the ranks in all three of those stats!”

Eric nodded. “If I can actually keep up this pace. We’ll see it I’m anywhere near my goal in a month’s time. And hopefully you’ll be well on your way to matching me at that point.”

Sam positively beamed. “Jeez, can you imagine? If I could just establish a sense of my own Qi flow and achieve even a couple of ranks, I’d be well on my way to hitting twenty or more in every physical stat! Eventually, I’d be as strong as any Gold Medal Olympian, as fast as any mortal fencer could hope to be. Wow!”

Eric flashed an oddly apologetic smile. “Actually, what I’m doing is borderline absurd. I’m only pulling it off because I both have a Fire Essence affinity and access to a Fire Qi affiliated realm, and I’m using techniques from the manual that seem to be specifically designed so that anyone with a knack or affinity can adapt it to their needs. Even so, I still might be better off, or at least a bit safer, if I spent a week or even several weeks between node cracking sessions. Yet my System enhanced Vitality seems to be letting me cheat a little bit, so I can squeeze the breakthroughs in every three days or so. And even then...”

Eric shrugged. “Honestly, I’m just playing this all by ear. I can only hope that I’m not somehow setting myself along a doomed path with pitfalls ahead that I presently lack the wisdom to see.”

Sam laughed at that. “Yeah, cry those crocodile tears as you pound your undead training slabs with superhuman strength, you glorious bastard. Speaking of which, great news! I think I finally found something that works!”

Eric’s gaze perked up at this. “Really! One of the charts is actually a good fit? That’s fantastic!”

Sam winced, cheeks flushing slightly. “Actually, it’s more like a portion of one of the charts I think, well, when I touched it, traced my finger over it, I felt this weird tingling over my body, like I was tracing my own soul. Or, well, gateway configuration.”

Eric grinned. “Dude, that’s great news!”

“Well, I’m not 100% sure. Eric?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s the dragon chart.”

Eric blinked at this. “No shit.”

His friend nodded. “Only the center six. All the others, well, I get nothing from. But when I traced the center six, how they all interconnected, while ignoring the others, it just felt right.”

Eric nodded matter-of-factly, then grinned. “So you solved the riddle of yourself. You cultivator’s path now lies before you, hero with dragon blood flowing through his veins.”

“Ha ha. Very funny. More like a sweet coincidence, or maybe those charts are meant to be guide posts, adaptable to anyone with at least the potential for a stable current, for lack of a better word.”

Eric nodded. “Could be. And we took it to mean just those literal 4 charts when, if we had any kind of instructor or guide...”

Sam shrugged. “But we only have ourselves. Because our people are surrounded by competitors and outright enemies who would deny us access to any resources that could help us better ourselves, eager to see humanity stumble and fall. But use crying over spilled milk, right? We’ll make due with what we have, and be so much stronger than we could have ever been in our old lives that it beggars all belief.”

Eric grinned. “Exactly! Congratulations on the breakthrough, Sam. You’ll be cultivating by my side before you know it!”

“Sure hope so.” Intent brown eyes locked on Eric’s own. “Thanks, by the way. For keeping the party link, for letting me sense how the spiritual energy flows through your entire body. So damned different from the energy Alice is trying to master.”

Eric blinked at this. “You can sense the flows of both types, just by looking at the practitioners?”

“Of course. Especially if I’m partied up with them,” Sam declared, earning a laugh from Eric.

“I think you have a major gift, there. The system will label it an Arcane Perception skill. I get mine through my Infravision ability as a Magesight specialization, but I think it’s pretty much the same thing. And if you’re actually seeing Spiritual Energy flows, flows which I just feel, your eyes might be even better than mine.”

This earned a snort. “Finally. About time I was better at something.”

Eric grinned. “Somehow I don’t think you’re going to fall too far behind me, little buddy. Now come on. Let’s get some saber practice in. Then you can show me how to throw effective combinations as a boxer, and we’ll see about getting you your breakthrough.”

Sam grinned. “You’re on. And who are you calling little?”

Eric smirked, pleased to have someone in his life who really seemed increasingly like a little brother to him, taking pride in how quickly Samuel was blossoming, and he couldn’t help but feel a warm glow at the awed look Sam gave him when he took to practicing his iado fast-draw technique against an undead training dummy, cutting through toughened flesh with half a dozen lightning fast draw cuts in the blink of an eye, before resheathing his blade.

“Dude, you have to show me how to draw and cut in a single motion like that!”

Eric nodded. “I will. When you’re ready. And I can’t think of anything that will prepare you quicker than the rush of Quickness and Strength a breakthrough will give you.”

“Ha ha, I get it. Alright, let the cultivation session commence!”

It actually turned out to be a handful of cultivation sessions before Sam finally felt ready to push through. But that was fine with Eric, happy just to cultivate and allow his friend to watch, to better learn how to correlate the lessons within their shared manual with real life application, Eric being the only role model he had.

But after a few days of intense concentration, an anxious nod was all a beaming Eric needed to see on the third morning after Sam had stated his intentions to know that it was time.

At which point the pair of them sat cross-legged from one another, Sam doing all he could to feel the flow of warm fiery power flowing through Eric’s veins, gently enough to cause no additional strain, but bright enough that Eric sensed even his friend could see it, at least through their party link, and then it was Sam who’s eyes bolted wide, tears running down his cheek when he cried out for joy Eric truly hadn’t been expecting.

“Eric, I think I broke through!”

Eric grinned, because if the sudden surge of potency Eric sensed rippling through Sam was any indication, he had done just that.

And Eric didn’t begrudge the time spent over the next few days gently guiding his friend along as best he could, even as his own progress slowed to a crawl, particularly when his party interface made it clear that he was now partied with a Rank 1 Basic Cultivator.

In truth, he couldn’t have been happier for his friend. The bitter anger and desperate hunger to grow ever stronger that had kept him going at such a mad pace for so long was finally easing to a gentle eagerness just to progress at his own pace, a comfortable, sane, and hopefully foundation-friendly rate of growth.

Eric w as now as eager to feel his mind and body flowing together in ever greater harmony with every cultivation and practice session as he was to clear his meridians and boost his stats, slowly mastering the art of quick jabs and power strikes with his fists as his meridian channels continued to strengthen at their own pace, and Eric began walking in earnest the endless steps that he suspected were the hallmark of all true cultivators.

It was with a pleased smile, in fact, that he allowed himself to drift off under the gentle shafts of golden afternoon light under one of the many ventilation holes of their increasingly snug home, savoring a contentment he had thought forever lost to him.

Before that golden light opened the windows of his soul to truths long suppressed as revelation turned to desperate fear for one of the very few he loved with all his heart.

***

“Ignis Oblivion!” A powerful haunting cry echoed across a battlefield of screams and blood and scores of fallen elves as an implacable legion of orcs plodded inexorably forward. Entire regiments of musketeers guarded by lines of shield bearers raised their weapons with a single barked command from a massive red-eyed chieftan who stood a towering ten feet in height, directing his men to fire in unison as the air roared with the bark of countless scores of muskets, the air thickening with the haze of gunpowder as desperately retreated elves collapsed before the onslaught, the woods that had been their haven, their defense, now burning fiercely under the hot flames of treachery as a trio of goblins wearing the uniforms of traders but with the ice-cold eyes of hired killers slipped away from the caravan that had been filled with the equivalent of napalm.

So many hidden truths revealed under the golden light of a setting sun.

Truths that became Eric’s own, dreams haunted by nightmares tasting of revelations terrible, undeniable, as Aurelia Silver herself snarled at their foes. “We were betrayed, Visiguth. Our men poisoned, our forest ablaze. The goblins have broken the accords!”

A powerfully built man in silver mail with upswept ears and a hard glint to his gaze nodded.

“Two centuries and countless worlds rife with their mercantile treachery, and never did they dare to cross that line with your faction, until this day.” He flashed a humorless smile as the second by his side blew the horn for retreat. “Even if they used auxiliary assassins they will claim are free agents, even if the Council will decline any formal censure, our tribes will know. The Sylvan Alliance will neither forget nor forgive.” Hard eyes met Aurelia’s own. “Is your daughter ready? It’s time.”

Even in his dream, Eric felt his heart lurch when one of the most strikingly beautiful actresses ever to grace the screen gave an imperious nod, flashing a bitter smile. “She is. And the orcs are exactly where we want them. Eager to feast upon the weakness they sense.” Aurelia clenched her fist, glaring at the burning forest with bitter tears running down her porcelein cheeks. “Come. Let us embrace this tragedy, the death of our woods adding life to our play that the gloating pigs could never believe we’d set ourselves to lore them in. We have the damned goblins to thank for that, at least. Come. Let us forge a pyrric victory from our despair.”

His mother flashed a bitter smile, closing her large almond eyes that had captivated so many of Eric’s friends, once upon a time. “Daughter. Are you ready?”

“Mother! The forest is ablaze!” Warm rays of sun caressed the sobbing form of the trembling girl Eric had done his best to love and protect all his days. His sister. His twin. Born only minutes after he. Even now trembling with terror and pain reminiscent of her worst days, just a couple years back, when Eric had sworn with all his heart that he would protect her, heart once more ablaze with a fierce hate for the wolf in producer’s clothing that had come so close to destroying Elonia…

Before Eric put down that wolf for good. Having counted it a fair trade… a murderer’s troubled sleep for his sister’s sanity and virtue restored.

But it had taken the Interface to completely heal the ever so faint scars on his sister’s arms… and Eric feared nothing would mend the terror and despair he saw in his sister’s gaze as her own wide almond eyes beheld a majestic forest Eric immediately felt a connection to… now blazing as hotly as any orc fire pit, before turning his attention to the legions of orcs, the shafts released by the setting sun’s final glimmers cascading upon a full dozen tribal banners as a certain spirit realized to his horror that time truly waited for no man, or would-be Contender, and that alliances were already forming as disparate tribes and powers began unifying under flags of fire and blood.

But it seemed that unlike Eric, his sister hadn’t spent months locked in stasis hovering between life and death.. and more months still ascending from broken survivor to a force to be reckoned with.

No, Eric realized, much to his awe and wonder as his sister’s eyes blazed with eldritch flame, half a dozen brilliant silver clad Sylvan shieldman now surrounding her as her words echoed across the heavens.

His sister had chosen a different path.

A path aligned with the very heavens it seemed, as clouds darkened, heavy with the bitter weight of a desperate princess’s tears.

Until they unloaded a flood of sorrow cloaked as a fearsome storm.

A storm now drenching endless acres of blazing forest.

Before unleashing a shower of lightning upon countless hundreds of orcs.

But not before gunfire and cannon had obliterated the elven line.

Even if just a few score of shieldmen had fallen, after trusting in their silvered armaments and who knew how many perks… even if the dying shafts of light failed to light up the armored skulls of countless hundreds of elves embracing the tried and true virtues of trench warfare when facing the one race permitted unlimited use of black powder cannons… Eric still sensed countless dozens of Sylvan people… his people… falling in death.

And with a forest still blazing despite the rain, even the hundreds of Elves in carefully camouflaged trenches were in peril.

But if the storm held for long enough, longer than the final rays of a now setting sun, a dreaming Eric couldn’t help but feel a fierce sense of hope.

Hope that victory would be pulled free of the bitter jaws of defeat.

And the fierce light in Elonia’s eyes, the hard smile gracing strikingly beautiful features that truly were an echo of their mother’s, made it clear that she was intent on doing just that.

Arms raised as she howled with the might of a storm, the culmination of who knew how many weeks of sacrifice, Eric awed by the flood of potency, of oaths given and pacts made and a terrible price his sister had paid to bring things to a head, here and now.

Eric could only imagine bitter tears quietly shed, as they had been so many times before.

Yet before Eric’s eyes closed like the setting disk of fire, he caught sight of triumph turning to terror, his sisters fierce grin turning to a grimace of surprise and pain.

Eyes bulging as slender hands reached for a throat spurting blood.

“The princess has been hit! Retreat! Retreat!” As one, before Eric’s fading spirit could even get a clear look, the half dozen powerful shieldmen had turtled around their princess as white hot blasts of plasma sought to tear through them.

Even as screams for a healer ran out, even as the lightning storm died away, and too many orcs sprung up from their dying comrades with fierce cries of triumph before charging forward with berserking frenzy, one shieldman after another fell to blasts a horrified Eric could sense, echoing on the same spectrum of heat and light that he now understood all too well.

With a fading howl, Eric was pulled away from that horrific vision, catching sight only of a desperate elven healer embracing his sister in a white glow, before he too was hit by streaks of plasma.

Plasma fired in a line Eric raced along at the speed of light, before the rays of a dying sun caught sight of the fierce smile of the goblin gripping his Mark II Deathblaze braced on its tripod mount with masterful precision, the spotter to his left hissing and snarling for him to confirm the kill, a third goblin wielding a triple-shot crossbow, presently scanning the area around their shooter’s nest on the grassy gnoll they had claimed as their own.

Eric’s soul roared with a blinding fire that transcended mere fury.

He was a world away. A powerless spirit catching a glimpse between wake and sleep of what could be present, past, or future.

And he didn’t care.

Shattering rules with a Contender’s fury, glaring his hate right into the flinching goblin hissing as the setting sun flashed in his scope.

“I WILL END YOU, YOU GODDAMNED BASTARDS! DO YOU HEAR ME? I WILL PURGE YOUR KIND FROM THIS WORLD, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES! NO MATTER WHO I HAVE TO KILL! WE ARE AT WAR YOU BASTARDS! DO YOU HERE ME? WE ARE AT WAR!”

He could smell it then, as he faded to oblivion, the searing scent of scalding flesh and a goblin screaming in fury as Eric gladly paid the price in blood, potency, and life, to mark the soul of his foe.

A foe he would do everything he could to kill, as soon as he returned, knowing he would never forget their furious guttural voices as sleep finally claimed it’s due.

“Do you feel that? Fate is twisting! We must retreat, now!”

“Finish it, you fool! They are retreating!”

And Eric knew no more.